Dec 18, 2011

Prosafe orders harsh environment semi-submersible accommodation rig

Prosafe has entered into a turnkey contract for the construction of a semi-submersible accommodation rig at Jurong Shipyard Pte Ltd. in Singapore. The new unit will be the most advanced and efficient harsh environment accommodation rig in the world and will be constructed to comply with Norwegian regulations.
The rig will be constructed according to the GVA 3000E design and will be equipped with a DP3 (dynamic positioning) system as well as 12 point mooring arrangement. This will allow for operations in harsh environments both in DP and anchored mode, providing maximum cost efficiency and flexibility. The unit will have the capacity to accommodate 450 persons in single man cabins.
GVA is an experienced designer of semi-submersible rigs and its track-record includes numerous vessels operating in harsh environments. The GVA 3000E design is an enhanced and enlarged version of previous GVA designs and incorporates long operational experience. Prosafe currently has three GVA rigs in the fleet.
Jurong Shipyard is one of the world’s leading constructors of semi-submersible rigs. The yard has to date delivered 13 semi-submersible DP vessels and has three on order. Jurong has delivered a number of other offshore vessels, including vessels designed for operation on the Norwegian Continental Shelf. Prosafe has chosen Jurong Shipyard due to its demonstrated capabilities and strong commitment as a rig builder.
Delivery from the yard is scheduled for the second quarter of 2014 and all-in cost including yard cost, owner-furnished equipment, project management and financing is estimated at USD 350 million. 20 per cent of the yard cost is payable at signing of the contract, while the remaining 80 per cent will be paid at delivery. The investment can be funded over the current balance sheet without impacting the dividend policy. The contract with Jurong also includes options for two more units, valid for approximately 12 and 18 months, respectively.
The new rig is ordered on the back of a positive market outlook. The majority of production installations in the North Sea are in a mature stage. At the same time, many of the larger fields are expected to continue producing well beyond the initial estimated depletion date. This development is supportive for the long-term demand for assets and services related to maintenance, modifications and redevelopments. Furthermore, the recent large discoveries in Norway, combined with continued high exploration effort, indicate strong demand related to hook-up and commissioning activities.
With the addition of the new harsh environment rig, Prosafe reinforces its leading position in the high-end accommodation rig segment, strengthening the company’s ability to meet clients' needs related to increasingly complex operations in a growing market.
Source: Prosafe
Posted on 12/18/2011 / 0 comments / Read More

North Korea’s Kim Jong Il Dies

Kim Jong Il, the second-generation North Korean dictator who defied global condemnation to build nuclear weapons while his people starved, has died, state media reported. A government statement called on North Koreans to “loyally follow” his son, Kim Jong Un.
Kim, 70, died on Dec. 17 of a heart attack brought on by mental and physical strain while on a domestic train trip, the official Korean Central News Agency said. Kim probably had a stroke in August 2008 and may have also contracted pancreatic cancer, according to South Korean news reports.
The son of Kim Il Sung, North Korea’s founder, Kim was a chain-smoking recluse who ruled for 17 years after coming to power in July 1994 and resisted opening up to the outside world in order to protect his regime. The likely succession of his little-known third son, Jong Un, threatens to trigger a dangerous period for the Korean peninsula, where 1.7 million troops from the two Koreas and the U.S. square off every day.
“Kim Jong Un’s taking complete control of the helm will not take place for a while due to his youth and inexperienced leadership,” said Yang Moo Jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul. “The North will likely be under the control of a governing body for about a year.”
A state television announcer wept as she read the news of Kim’s death. Footage was aired of thousands of people in the main square of the capital of Pyongyang chanting in unison and waving Kimjongilia, a flower named after the deceased leader.
Jong Un, is at the “forefront of the revolution,” KCNA said in its statement of the elder Kim’s death. While official reports give Kim’s age as 69, Russian records indicate he was born in Siberia in February 1941.

Won, Stocks Fall

South Korea’s won declined as much as 1.6 percent to a two-month low of 1,177.15 per dollar and government bonds dropped after the news. The Kospi index lost 4.2 percent to 1,762.34 as of 12:38 p.m. in Seoul.
Kim leaves behind an economy less than three percent the size ofSouth Korea’s and which has relied on economic handouts since the 1990’s, when an estimated 2 million people died from famine. The United Nations and the U.S. last year increased economic sanctions imposed as a result of North Korea’s nuclear weapons activities and attacks that killed 50 South Koreans.
Lampooned by foreign cartoonists and filmmakers for his weight, his zippered jumpsuits, his aviator sunglasses and his bouffant hairdo, Kim cut a more serious figure in his rare dealings with world leaders outside the Communist bloc.
“If there’s no confrontation, there’s no significance to weapons,” he toldMadeleine Albright, then U.S. secretary of state, in a 2000 meeting in Pyongyang.

Nuclear Tests

Those words took on greater significance in 2009 as Kim defied threats of United Nations sanctions to test a second nuclear device and a ballistic missile, technically capable of striking Tokyo.
The following year North Korea lashed out militarily, prompting stern warnings from the U.S. and South Korea. An international investigation blamed Kim’s regime for the March 2010 sinking of a South Korean naval vessel that killed 46 sailors. Eight months later North Korea shelled a South Korean island, killing two soldiers and two civilians. The act followed reports by an American scientist that the country had made “stunning” advances to its uranium-enrichment program.
Japan Security Meeting
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda’s cabinet held a security meeting after the announcement, while the U.S. issued a statement saying the Obama administration is “closely monitoring” the situation and is contact with South Korea and Japan.
Last year, Kim also set in line his succession plan. Kim Jong Un, thought to be 28 or 29, was first mentioned in official KCNA dispatches on Sept. 28, 2010, when his appointments as general and vice chairman of the Central Military Commission of the party were announced. Jong Un stood at his father’s right side at a military parade the next month, wearing a black suit with a mandarin collar similar to the style worn by his grandfather, who founded the nation after World War II.
His nuclear pursuit was an attempt to counter the advantage in conventional weapons that South Korea was able to build as its economy boomed. When North Korea tested its first nuclear bomb, on Oct. 9, 2006, Kim enhanced his bargaining position with the South and two other old enemies, the U.S. and Japan.

Cult Personality

Kim was groomed to succeed his father for three decades, taking power when the “Great Leader” died in July 1994 to an outpouring of national grief. He extended a cult of personality as the “Dear Leader” even as many of the nation’s 24 million citizens lived on an average income of less than a dollar a day.
In the official version of Kim’s birth, a double rainbow heralded his arrival on Mount Paektu, revered as the birthplace of the Korean people, at a secret guerrilla camp where his father was leading the struggle against Japanese colonial rule during World War II.
Foreign historians say instead that by then the elder Kim was in theeastern Soviet Union where he trained at a Soviet army base, having already retreated from northeastern China, the scene of most of his guerrilla activity. Soviet records show that the year of Kim’s Feb. 16 birth was altered in the official version, to 1942 from 1941. That permitted his milestone birthdays to be celebrated in the same years when the country feted those of his father, who was born in 1912.

Troubled Life

Kim Il Sung and his family returned in 1945 to Pyongyang, which became the capital of North Korea after the government was established in 1948. After the elder Kim took power, his son experienced a troubled family life. A younger brother drowned, and his mother died. His father remarried and the boy clashed with his stepmother and half-brothers.
Official accounts say non-family members including teachers deferred to the son as a little prince. By the time he graduated from Kim Il Sung University in Pyongyang in 1964, he had developed a reputation among the small foreign community as undisciplined and impulsive, a hard-partying womanizer and lover of gourmet food and fast cars.
For three decades, Kim exercised power as a high-level official, rarely traveling abroad or meeting foreign leaders and often going for long periods when his domestic public appearances weren’t mentioned in the state-run media. He was named the heir-designate in 1974 and made co-ruler in 1984.

Movie Buff

Kim was a cinema buff whose personal library included tens of thousands of western movies. Obsessed with improving the country’s film output, he had agents kidnap South Korea’s leading director, Shin Sang-ok, and the director’s actress wife, Choi Eun-hi. They were brought to Pyongyang to work in the local industry and subsequently escaped with tape recordings of conversations they had with Kim.
For more than a decade, Kim also employed a Japanese sushi chef, whose 2003 memoir, “Kim Jong Il’s Chef,” chronicled lavish dinner parties featuring global delicacies.
As deputy and later leader of the party’s propaganda department, Kim led North Korea’s version of China’s Cultural Revolution, remodeling the country’s cinema, opera and other arts to intensify the personality cult that deified his father and later himself.
“People of the world, if you are looking for miracles, come to Korea,” the party newspaper said in a pre-Christmas editorial celebrating the junior Kim’s 1980 elevation to the politburo’s inner circle. “Christians, do not go to Jerusalem. Come rather to Korea. Do not believe in God. Believe in the great man.”
That way of looking at the supreme leader “was the work of Kim Jong Il” rather than his father, wrote Hwang Jang Yop, a former propaganda chief who defected to South Korea in 1997. Kim’s economic legacy is a country on the brink of ruin.

North Korean Economy

Until the early 1970s, North Korea’s command economy performed impressively compared with the capitalist system adopted by rival South Korea.
Those roles reversed early in Kim’s tenure as South Korea’s economy took off, though he largely ignored economic realities and lavished funds on grandiose monuments promoting worship of his parents and himself. Most prominent is a 105-story pyramid- shaped hotel buildingdominating the Pyongyang skyline. Started in 1987, the hotel remained under construction and unopened more than two decades later.
Kim remained hesitant to open the country to market forces. During a visit to China in 1983, Chinese leader Hu Yaobang advised him to promote tourism. Kim worried that tourists would be able to identify North Korea’s defenses.
“If Pyongyang is opened up, it will be the same as calling back the forces along the border,” he told the kidnapped director and actress in a 1983 discussion that they secretly taped and later carried out during their escape in 1986. “It’s the same as being disarmed.”

Deadly Walk

Tourists were permitted in the late 1990s, most notably to Mount Geumgang, known for its scenic beauty. In 2008, North Korean troops shot and killed a South Korean tourist there who they said entered a military zone while taking a walk. The resort is now closed to South Koreans.
By the time Kim took power in 1994, Russia and the countries of Eastern Europe had cast off communism and were no longer sending aid. That left China as the main benefactor, accounting for 83 percent of North Korea’s $4.2 billion of international commerce in 2010, according to the Seoul-based Korea Trade & Investment Promotion Agency.

1990s Famine

Hundreds of thousands of North Koreans died in a famine in the mid- and late-1990s. Kim refrained from enforcing the usual tight restrictions on mobility, permitting starving people to travel within the country to find food. Kim hoped to avert a sudden loss of popular support, so that the regime would not “experience meltdown as in Poland andCzechoslovakia,” he said in a 1996 speech that was recorded and later smuggled abroad.
Kim’s closest flirtation with economic overhaul began with a series of legal changes starting in 1998. A new constitution adopted that year called for “a cost-accounting system” for economic management and joint ventures with foreigners in special economic zones.
This led to the opening of Gaeseong Industrial Complex where more than 100 South Korean companies set up shop, hiring North Korean workers. South Korea’s economy is 40 times larger than North Korea’s.

Nuclear Brinksmanship

Kim stepped up his nuclear brinksmanship with the outside world in 2003, when he withdrew from the Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty, triggering a flurry of diplomatic activity that spawned the six-party talks involving the U.S., Japan, Russia, South Korea and China. Negotiations intensified after the 2006 nuclear detonation, with North Korea agreeing to shut its nuclear reactor in exchange for shipments of fuel.
Tensions flared again in April 2009 after the UN denounced a ballistic missile test and North Korea said it would withdraw permanently from six-party negotiations and resume uranium enrichment. The regime also fired 17 short-range missiles between May and July.
Kim’s regime tested a second nuclear device in May as well, precipitating additional UN sanctions. The Security Council on July 17 barred five North Korean officials from leaving their country and ordered their foreign assets frozen as punishment for working on nuclear weapons and missiles.

Public Appearances

Kim made two major public appearances in 2009, once in April and another on July 8 to commemorate the 15th anniversary of his father’s death. In footage of the latter event on Korean Central Television, Kim limped and his hair and features seemed thinner than three months earlier.
He bounced back a month later, leveraging the detention of U.S. journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling to win a visit by former U.S. President Bill Clinton. Clinton flew to Pyongyang on what the U.S. administration insisted was a private humanitarian mission to secure the reporters’ freedom.
Kim was photographed smiling alongside a stony-faced Clinton, who left with the women following a one-hour meeting and dinner with the Korean leader, according to Korean Central News Agency.
“Kim Jong Il inherited a genius for playing the weak hand and by keeping the major powers nervous, continuing his father’s tradition of turning Korea’s history of subservience on its head,” said Michael Breen, the Seoul-based author of “Kim Jong Il: North Korea’s Dear Leader,” abiography. “We have entered an uncertain moment with North Korea.”
Source: Bloomberg
To contact the reporter on this story: Bill Austin in Tokyo at billaustin@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Charles W. Stevens atcstevens@bloomberg.net
Posted on 12/18/2011 / 0 comments / Read More

Kolskaya rig sinking death toll rises to 16


Rescuers have found 16 bodies in the Sea of Okhotsk, where a Russian floating oil rig with 67 people on board capsized and sank in heavy storm 200 kilometers off Sakhalin on Sunday.
Four vessels, two helicopters and an An-74 plane are involved in the search-and-rescue operation which saw 14 people from the sunken Kolskaya platform rescued late last week.
Earlier, four life rafts were reportedly found with no one on board.
A criminal probe has been opened into what investigators said might have been caused by safety norm violations amid severe weather conditions.
Source: The Voice of Russia
Posted on 12/18/2011 / 0 comments / Read More

South Korea: Samjin Secures Order for 6 Handysize ECO-type Bulk Vessels

Earlier this month Bohandymar Limited – a 100% subsidiary of CMB – ordered 6 Handysize ECO-type bulk vessels (36.000 dwt) from Samjin Shipbuilding Industries Korea (Samjin) on very competitive conditions. The order includes two options each for two additional units.
The delivery of the first four units is scheduled for 2013; and the others are scheduled for 2014.
These vessels will be built according to the most modern specifications and are highly environmentally-friendly. The design offers a 30% fuel saving – as compared to vessels of the previous generation – and consequently a much lower CO2-emission. The vessels will also be equipped with a ballast water management system and are furthermore extremely flexible as regards the type of cargo they are able to carry.
With this order Bocimar strengthens its co-operation with Samjin. In 2007 Bocimar already ordered 10 – 33.500 dwt – Handysize units that were built at Samjin’s Chinese yard. Today 9 of these vessels are still part of Bocimar’s fleet.
Recently Bocimar reached an agreement for the termination of its counterparty default insurance. Within the framework of this agreement Bocimar has received an indemnity of USD 120 million.
This amount will be accounted for in the results over the remaining period of the previously insured contracts.
Posted on 12/18/2011 / 0 comments / Read More

Dockwise to manage and market new COOEC 50000 tonnes Semi Submersible Heavy Lift Vessel

BREDA, THE NETHERLANDS, Dec 01, 2011 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) -- Dockwise Ltd today announces it has reached agreement with Offshore Oil Engineering Co. Ltd. (COOEC) to act as manager of COOEC's new build type 1 marine transportation vessel for all third party projects.
The new vessel, a semi-submersible, currently under construction at China Merchants Yard in Shenzhen, is due for delivery by the end of March 2012. At 222 metres in length and deadweight of 53,500 tonnes, the vessel will be capable of carrying loads of up to 50,000 tonnes.
Dockwise will operate the vessel under a management contract in close cooperation with COOEC as part of the total Dockwise fleet of semi submersible vessels. Dockwise will be responsible for marketing the vessel and will be training the permanent crew.
Speaking at the signing ceremony, at the the Marintec convention in Shanghai, Andre Goedee, Chief Executive, Dockwise, said:
"This is an innovative arrangement which brings distinct benefits for both COOEC and Dockwise. COOEC will engage the world's leading heavy marine transport firm to secure profitable cargoes for their vessel and Dockwise gains access to further, premium, new-build resource for our own clients as demand in the sector moves into rapid growth. COOEC's vessel will complement our own fleet capacity during a phase of accelerated offshore project installation and development."
Posted on 12/18/2011 / 0 comments / Read More

Four dead, 49 missing as Russian oil rig sinks



















Rescuers have saved 14 of the 67 people who were on board a floating oil rig which capsized in the Sea of Okhotsk in Russia’s Far East, according to latest reports. Four more have been found dead. 
The Kolskaya rig was being towed by an icebreaker and a tow boat to Sakhalin Island after finishing its drill mission when the disaster happened. A distress signal was sent from it on Sunday morning.
The Emergencies Ministry says 14 people have been saved and four found dead. Rescuers had problems with lifting the dead bodies from the water and had to leave them floating in the sea until the storm, which sank the rig, calmed down a little. It is feared that none of the missing people will be found alive now.
The rescue operation is continuing despite night having fallen. Another ship has reached the wreck site around midnight local time and joined the Magadan ice-breaker in conducting the operation through the night. Two more rescue ships are expected to get to the scene by the morning.
A transport plane from the Russian Pacific Fleet has interrupted its rescue mission and returned to base due to low visibility. No signs of the victims have been found so far, but its mission will continue on Monday morning. It was initially sent to the location with additional rafts, which could be dropped from the air to assist anyone they manage to find.
Two helicopters deployed at the scene have also interrupted operations until the morning.
Four of the people rescued were transported to land via helicopter for further treatment. All of them suffered exposure to cold, but have no other injuries, medics said.
All workers at the rig were equipped with warm, dry suits and life vests, rescuers say, and there is still hope more survivors will be found.
“All those rescued were wearing diving suits. Every single one of the rig's crew was wearing a diving suit. They should have kept them afloat in these icy waters,” said Emergencies Ministry specialist, Sergey Petrovsky. 
There were also four inflatable rafts on the facility. Rescuers found two of those, but discovered nobody on board. 
“It means that the crew was not able to get down in the lifeboats. The boats were washed away with the flow of the water,” said the rescue operation co-ordinator, Veniamin Ivanychev.
Initially the search was conducted by the two vessels which were towing the rig, and a helicopter. However the tow boat Neftegaz-55 started to leak near the engine room closer to the evening and had to withdraw from the location. The leak does not pose a danger to the ship, the Transport Ministry said. But Interfax cites sources in the water transport regulator as saying that the ship’s water pumps are failing to deal with the leak.
Another ship is expected to reach the wreck site in the night and two more are to be there by the morning. 
The rig itself has completely sunk. Authorities said it had little fuel left and those supplies were in sealed tanks, so the environmental damage to the region will be minimal, if any.
The incident happened 200 kilometers off Sakhalin Island. Conditions at sea have been very severe lately, with waves up to six meters high and winds of 70 kilometers per hour in the area. A storm caused the rig to tip over. It damaged two of its air tanks, which gave buoyancy to the platform. This tilted it and it capsized in a roughly 20 minutes.
This happened as helicopters were preparing to evacuate 53 crew members and 14 passengers from it, because staying aboard was deemed too risky in such conditions.
Investigators say the most likely cause of the disaster was violation of safety regulations for transportation of the rig in stormy weather. They are planning to interview the survivors as soon as possible to find out the details of the accident.
The Kolskaya rig was built in 1985. At 70 meters long and 80 wide, it was one of the largest oil rigs in Russia. It was due to set sail for drilling off the Vietnamese coast at the end of its current mission.
The rig incident is the second high-profile maritime disaster in Russia this year. In July, the pleasure boat Bulgaria sank during a cruise on the Volga River in a storm. Of the 201 people onboard, 122 died when the ship went down in a matter of minutes. Investigators blamed negligence and violation of safety rules for that incident.
Source: RT.com
Posted on 12/18/2011 / 0 comments / Read More

Nov 11, 2011

Russia starts construction of two mega shipyards in the Far East

Russia has commenced the construction of two ultra-modern shipyards, Vostok-Raffles and Zvezda-DSME in the country’s Far East, the Russian government press office said.
Source: Port News
Posted on 11/11/2011 / 1 comments / Read More

Naming Ceremony for Deepsea Metro II

Thursday 10th of November 2011 Deepsea Metro II naming ceremony was officially held in Ulsan at the Hyundai Heavy Industries yard. This is the fourth successful ultra deep water vessel delivery for Odfjell Drilling, with regards to project planning, delivery and excellent HSE performance
“This is the fourth major project Odfjell Drilling has successfully delivered since the Deepsea Atlantic in 2009. We are very pleased to see that our site team and the yard have succeeded in every way, with regards to both safety and schedule. The safety results in all our projects are very satisfactory, which is an important indicator of professionalism and accountability in all aspects,” says CEO in Odfjell Drilling Mr. Simen Lieungh.
Odfjell Offshore and Metro Exploration share joint ownership of two state-of-the-art ultra deep water drillships. Odfjell Offshore has a 40% ownership share in the two drillships, Deepsea Metro I & II.
Ultra deepwater campaign and fleet renewalSince 2009 Odfjell Drilling has renewed its fleet of semisubmersibles and drillships with four units. This is a part of the company’s growth strategy in the harsh environment and ultra deepwater market.

2009 - Deepsea Atlantic. Ultra deepwater and harsh environment semisubmersible. Operating for Statoil at NCS.

2010 - Deepsea Stavanger. Ultra deepwater and harsh environment semisubmersible. Operating for BP in Angola.

2011 - Deepsea Metro I. Ultra deepwater drillship owned by Deepsea Metro Ltd. Operating for BG Group.

2011 - Deepsea Metro II. Ultra deepwater drillship owned by Deepsea Metro Ltd. Contract with Petrobras, Brazil.
Source: Odfjell Drilling
Posted on 11/11/2011 / 0 comments / Read More

Nov 7, 2011

Dockwise sells yacht transport company

BREDA, Netherlands – Dockwise Ltd., owner of Dockwise Yacht Transport, announced today that it has signed a letter of intent to sell the wholly-owned subsidiary to Coby Enterprises Corp. The transaction will be a cash deal and the figures will be announced following the close of the deal, which is conditional upon market customary conditions.
Dockwise Yacht Transport is operated independently from Dockwise, and the company said in a statement that there is no significant overlap in customers or synergy with the remaining Dockwise fleet. Following the transaction, Dockwise will focus solely on its core heavy marine transport, transport and installation, and logistical management activities.
“DYT played a significant role in the origins of Dockwise, being the product of the merger between Dock Express and Wijsmuller, but with the evolution of our business it is no longer a strategic asset,” said Dockwise Chief Executive Andre Goedee in a statement.
Coby Enterprises, the New York company set to purchase DYT, provides marine solutions, transportation and logistics in the domestic and international markets. “We are excited to get involved in this dynamic and interesting niche in marine transportation,” said Coby CEO Steven Byle in a statement.
He added, ”DYT clients can look forward to uninterrupted service in the short term, and improved and expanded services as we go forward. The DYT team and vessels crews will stay in place, and there will be no change in routes or schedules. Moving toward the future, however, our plans include an immediate program for renewal and upgrade of the yacht carrier fleet. And we further intend to add new routes and services for our clients in the years to come.”
Source: BoatingIndustry
Posted on 11/07/2011 / 1 comments / Read More

New orders for Chinese shipbuilders sink

BEIJING, Nov. 1 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese shipbuilding industry suffered drastic declines in new orders in September this year, as the growth of the global ocean shipping market almost stalled amid economic slowdown, China's top economic planner said Tuesday.
New shipbuilding orders in September fell to 940,000 deadweight tonnes (DWT), the lowest monthly figure since June 2009, according to a report on the website of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC).
About 30 percent of China's 1,526 shipbuilding enterprises received no new orders in September, forcing some of the smaller and mid-sized ones to shut or stop production, said the NDRC.
As a result of shrinking orders and rising costs, 249 enterprises suffered losses in the first three quarters of 2011, 37.9 percent more than a year ago. Their total loses stood at 2.66 billion yuan (420 million U.S. dollars) at the end of August, according to the report.
For the first three quarters, new shipbuilding orders slumped 42.8 percent year-on-year to 29.02 million DWT, while incomplete orders dropped 13.8 percent to 168.86 million DWT.
Shipbuilding output totaled 51.01 million DWT from January to September, representing an increase of 18.3 percent from the previous year. The DWT of completed ships for exports stood at 43.05 million, or 84.4 percent of China's total output, according to the NDRC.
The China Association of the National Shipbuilding Industry (CANSI) projected the country's shipbuilding industry will continue to slow moderately in the fourth quarter, with a downbeat outlook for new orders and sharp declines in existing orders.
CANSI predicted more than 60 million DWT of ships will be completed this year.
Also, the China Newbuilding Price Index, which is based on calculations of shipbuilding companies' delivery, new orders and incomplete orders, continued to weaken, by 0.3 percent to 952 points during the reporting period between Oct. 15 and Oct. 30.
Source: Xinhua
Posted on 11/07/2011 / 0 comments / Read More

Oct 17, 2011

Fred. Olsen Energy ASA: Extension of Option for a Second Newbuild Drillship

Reference is made to notice to Oslo Stock Exchange dated 15th April 2011 regarding an option for a second newbuild drillship. A wholly owned subsidiary of Fred. Olsen Energy ASA and Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. Ltd. have agreed on an extension of the time limit for declaring this option till 20th December 2011. The scheduled delivery for such a newbuild remains 1st quarter 2014.   
Source: Businesswire
Posted on 10/17/2011 / 0 comments / Read More

Daewoo Shipbuilding says wins $1.95 billion orders

Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering said on Monday that it had secured a combined $1.95 billion worth of deals.

The South Korean shipbuilder said in a statement that it had signed a $1.4 billion deal to construct an offshore natural gas platform in Australia for Chevron Corp, and a $550 million agreement to build a drillship for an unidentified firm.
Reporting by Hyunjoo Jin and Ju-min Park; Editing by Jonathan Hopfner (Reuters)
Posted on 10/17/2011 / 0 comments / Read More

Atwood Oceanics Announces Contract for the Atwood Condor

ATWOOD OCEANICS, INC., announced that one of its subsidiaries has been awarded a drilling services contract by Hess Corporation for work in the Gulf of Mexico for the Atwood Condor, Atwood's ultra-deepwater, dynamically positioned Friede & Goldman ExD Millennium semisubmersible drilling unit currently under construction at Jurong Shipyard Pte. Ltd. in Singapore.The contract has a firm duration of 21 months, exclusive of the mobilization period from Singapore to the Gulf of Mexico, and includes two one-year options with pricing subject to mutual agreement.



The Atwood Condor is expected to be delivered from the shipyard in June 2012 and will mobilize to the Gulf of Mexico with expected arrival in September 2012. The commitment for the Atwood Condor is expected to run until June 2014, excluding well in progress. With this contract, Atwood's total revenue backlog increases by $329 million to approximately $1.9 billion, excluding approximately $32 million in mobilization revenue.

Rob Saltiel, Atwood President and CEO, commented, "We are extremely pleased with the opportunity for the Atwood Condor to work with Hess Corporation in the Gulf of Mexico. We look forward to demonstrating the Condor's extensive capabilities as we contribute to our client's success in the region."

Atwood Oceanics, Inc., is an international offshore drilling contractor engaged in the drilling and completion of exploratory and developmental oil and gas wells. The company currently owns ten mobile offshore drilling units located in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, South America, the Mediterranean Sea, West Africa, Southeast Asia and Australia, and is constructing an ultra-deepwater semisubmersible, an ultra-deepwater drillship and three high-specification jack ups for deliveries in 2012 and 2013. The company was founded in 1968 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas. Atwood Oceanics, Inc. ordinary shares are traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "ATW".

Statements contained in this press release with respect to the future, including the expected delivery of the vessel, arrival of the vessel and the length of the firm contractual commitment, are forward-looking statements. These statements reflect management's reasonable judgment with respect to future events. Forward-looking statements are subject to numerous risks, uncertainties and assumptions and actual results could differ materially from those anticipated as a result of various factors including: uncertainties related to the level of activity in offshore oil and gas exploration and development; oil and gas prices; competition and market conditions in the contract drilling industry; the risks inherent in the construction of a rig; delays in the commencement of operations of a rig following delivery; our ability to enter into and the terms of future contracts; possible cancelation or suspension of drilling contracts; the availability of qualified personnel; labor relations; operating hazards and risks; terrorism and political and other uncertainties inherent in foreign operations (including risk of war, civil disturbances, seizure or damage to equipment and exchange and currency fluctuations); the impact of governmental and industry laws and regulations; and environmental matters. These factors and others are described and discussed in our most recently filed annual report on Form 10-K, in our Forms 10-Q for subsequent periods and in our other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission which are available on the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. Each forward looking statement speaks only as of the date of the particular statement and we undertake no duty to update the content of this press release or any forward-looking statement contained herein to conform the statement to actual results or to reflect changes in our expectations.

SOURCE ATWOOD OCEANICS, INC.
Posted on 10/17/2011 / 0 comments / Read More
 
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